The Hunt: Bree Tanner's Story
by thevennom
Summary: When Bree Tanner is changed, she has everything she could want, but soon things don't turn out to be as great as she thought. When she decides to start her own coven things go haywire. One off. This is my first story so be nice and enjoy! 8D


Persecution 

Narrator POV

As she walked towards the platform, she noticed vampires and their covens from all over the world milling around, watching and waiting. Her shoulders were held in the firm grip of the Volturi guard, her feet black from the removal of her shoes as she walked through the dirt and her pride was shattered from the condescending glares of her fellow vampires. She was jostled, all of a sudden, back to reality as she was thrown up the stairs. The guard grabbed her and turned her around to face him, pushing her backwards. The pile of sticks collected off the forest floor dug into her back, but she hardly noticed. The guard moved to the side of the platform, and with her strong sense of hearing she could hear him picking up a blade and a torch before he moved back into her line of vision. She cast her eyes towards the ground, gazing in the direction of hell, where she was convinced she would be going for the crimes she had committed against mankind and vampirekind alike. She repressed the urge to jump at the guard and sink her teeth into his already scar-coated skin, feeling as though doing so would bring her some kind of justice. Out of nowhere, three male vampires appeared, having almost become invisible at the speed they were moving to reach her in the final moments of her life, as they were ending it. The first one moved forward and began to speak.  
>"You, my young lady, have come to our attention in the last few months that you have been breaking our laws and harming our kind intentionally," an almost inaudible murmur swept through the excited crowd like the rumblings of an earthquake just before it hits.<br>"For this you will die!" He then moved back into line with his brothers and gestured for the guard to begin. He looked at her and whispered in a lethal voice,  
>"Try anything funny sweetheart, and I will have no problem with ripping your head off." The blade he was holding in his hand began to glint in the moonlight as she sighed to herself,<br>"Why me? Is self preservation not allowed anymore? Why won't anyone believe that I haven't done anything wrong?"  
>The guard then lit the torch before handing it to the vampire. He began to move towards her, and threw the torch into the wood. She looked into his eyes, superiority haunting them. His blood red eyes were the final piece of reality she saw, and the flames consumed her.<p>

I have been very fortunate in my vampire life. I was changed by a good looking vampire and was immediately adopted into his coven. Riley taught me how to hunt fresh blood without being seen by other humans, how to trust my senses and how to carve my own way to respect in the coven. Everything was peachy until a few weeks ago.

It was on a particularly dark, wintry night. We were supposed to go hunting, but all the humans were at home. One rule all vampires share is that no vampire should enter a human's home to hunt. It would make it too obvious, and you would have to face the Volturi, which means certain death. I had been back at our temporary 'headquarters' trying to control the younger and thirstier vampires in the coven, while Riley went out hunting around the city outskirts for any stray humans for us to feed on. It had seemed like ages before he returned, but when he did he brought someone with him, and it wasn't a human.  
>"Bree, I would like you to meet and old friend of mine. Her name is Victoria. Victoria, this is Bree Tanner. She is my beta in this coven. She really great and handling our newest additions."<p>

At the word 'assistant,' I shivered and proceeded to stare at Victoria. She was beautiful; her fiery red curls glinted in the minimal moonlight and her skin had managed to retain a few defining freckles from her human life. I was immediately jealous.

Because I respected Riley and his decisions, and didn't want to cause a fuss, I tried to ignore the first few times that Victoria had been taking over my duties; looking after the newborns, making them feel welcome, training them and taking them out for their first hunt. But then Riley started treating my differently. Instead of treating me like a sister, he began to treat me like one of the bloodthirsty rogues that we occasionally had in our coven. All of a sudden I was the one cleaning up the mess after a feed, destroying the evidence of any accidents the newborns may have accidently caused. Victoria became the 'second alpha' and I was reduced to being the lowly 'omega.'

As the newborns gradually began to settle in and their need for blood slowly declined, they started to notice the changes in Riley as well. I've never been one to brag, but I always treated them with dignity and respect, but Victoria isn't like that. She's a dangerous, violent bigamist. So within a week of her arrival, the unhappy newborns and I took off to form our own coven, where all were welcome. The worst part was that Riley and Victoria didn't care at all. They were happy with each other.

So there we were, free at last! The newborns, or the 'newbies' as I like to call them, and I were really happy and it was like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders. We roamed around the entire city, and even into the countryside, recruiting the lost and unhappy human souls that seemed as though they were meant for this life. Everything was going really well, but then things started to change.

The newbies had been with me the longest and they were doing really well. They didn't have to feed nearly as often as the most recent additions to our coven. But it suddenly seemed as though we had changed to many new vampires than we could handle. The amount of blood that was required for the new vampires all of a sudden seemed to overwhelm the newbies. All of them, including the new vampires, except for two; Tora and Liam; turned rogue and left the coven to roam the country, terrorizing small country towns and major cities alike.

As there were now only three of us, it was easier to find places to stay. A few times we squatted in holiday homes that housed plasma screen TVs. Every night that we were there, we would watch the TV and every second story seemed to be about mass homicides and ruthless attacks. It wasn't hard to guess that these were caused by my rogue newbies.

This was only the beginning of our problems. I was completely used to taking the lives of one or two humans every week, but these vampires were killing almost a whole town every 3 days; and as weird as it sounds I actually felt pretty guilty about it. But that wasn't our main problem; we were brushing very close to the edge of exposure. When a risk like that arises, it isn't just us that are involved but all the other covens in our area as well. But there is still one more band of vampires that get involved; the Volturi.

The Volturi are like vampire royalty, consisting of three brothers; Aro, Caius and Marcus, with Aro always seeming to be in charge. They have been around for many, many years and are ruthless and feared by all vampires, enforcing vampire law; they don't care for anyone who tries to expose the vampire race or cause careless accidents. I had been considering for a while that they would want to get involved, but it didn't really sink in until a message was delivered to us by a Volturi guard called Demetri:

_To my dearest Bree,_

_It has come to my attention that extended branches of your coven have been causing havoc in various locations around the country. I trust that you understand why I'm writing to you; the risk of exposure. We cannot afford to be exposed to the human race. We have been living peacefully among them for many millennia, only taking what we need to survive, but your coven are taking a whole lot more. As the state of this situation is uncontrollable, it is up to us to punish the vampire in charge who is ultimately responsible for this problem. We will be travelling to meet you tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 so we can deal attempt to deal with it._

_All My Best,  
>Aro<em>

I managed to keep it together whilst Demetri was there, but after he left panic really began to set in. The Volturi don't take prisoners, they kill. That's the only thing they do. A visit from them brings the promise of certain death.

After I had managed to retrieve my voice before becoming hysterical, I sat down with Tora and Liam to figure out what to do. It was very clear what the only solution was; run. The Volturi are too strong for us to fight and too smart for us to bargain. But if we had a feed and worked out a clear cut path of where we would go and what we would do, than we might actually have a chance.

We hunted from dusk to dawn, sharing only a few humans between us and then finding extra snacks in the form of a bear and three deer. By the time that the afternoon came, we were ready.

It may have been smarter to leave earlier, but we wanted to preserve as much of the blood we had consumed as possible so we have to stop fewer times. But we also knew that the Volturi were never late, so on exactly 2:55pm, we ran.

We took the option of going via the mountains. With only three of us, we would leave fewer tracks. So as soon as we left the house, we headed straight for the mountains. But unfortunately for us, the Volturi were early.

I was the fastest out of the three of us, so I was in the lead. I turned my head only a little to see what was happening and I watched on in horror as Demetri and Felix appeared behind the house and began to close in on Tora and Liam. In only a matter of moments they had caught up, and Tora and Liam were reduced to a pile of burning marble-like chunks of flesh. If I could cry, I would've.

I then hear someone call out and tell Felix and Demetri to stop. I had already turned back around and had reached the tree line, but I could still someone racing across the field, chasing me.

I was running full of wild terror, unsure if I would survive the night, listening to the sound of feet pounding against the forest floor, echoing through the tall and fragrant trees.

When I thought that I had finally escaped them, a cold hand grabbed my arm and yanked me around. I tried to scream, but Aro had my mouth clamped shut. The last thing I remember was staring into a pair of blood red eyes, and then everything went black.


End file.
